Sculpting Bio-Synergies (UO Thesis Work): Winter term Final Review (thesis Mid Review)

My name is nick and the scope of my project is in a part of Portland known as Gateway. What makes Gateway unique, as well as my specific site, is that it is connected to the greater portland area via Light Rail Transit and Buses, yet fails to benefit from having tens of thousands of people pass through its front door each day. Another unique quality of gateway is that is has been defined as a Urban renewal area(URA) and has been closely examined for developing into an ECO-district.

Why Gateway? Well if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture we know that as we continue to grow in population we will need to create more structures to support more lives. Our current planning and building practices have promoted urban sprawl, which has lead to a heavy dependency on the automobile for travel, as well as is responsible for inefficient use of land. Lastly it has cause us to further encroach on precocious natural habitat.

So what can we do? We can continue to build in our urban cores, but we will eventually run out of space and not everyone is thrilled with the idea of living in a downtown. So where do we build. Over the next 100 years our efforts should be used to developing neighborhoods around existing and future transit corridors. Metro's 2040 growth plan has identified several Regional Centers and Gateway happens to be one of those. Suburban shopping centers which consist of single use structures surrounds by a sea of asphalt are the key areas we need to start looking to for future growth.

While regional transit works well to move people a bigger scales what do we do for the local level. Several terms of research has made me believe that a Streetcar would work as a catalyst for gateway in its ability to increase mobility for its current/ future residents, promote future growth in the right areas, and potentially function to deal with storm-water management and habitat. (board 1)

This winter term I have looked at the best configurations for a future streetcar alignment that is capable of doing the what I said above and have discovered that it is difficult to for the streetcar to service my site. I have decided to take advantage of this opportunity as a way to use the transferring of people between modes of transit as a means for engaging and activating a potential main street. (board 2)

Having my site adjacent to the transit center and inline with the streetcar stop affords me the potential of providing a building that is iconic. In the Spirit of TED "Ideas worth Spreading" i've selected a program concept of TEDx, a center that will function as a community venue for lectures and work exhibition, a backdrop to an urban plaza, orienting people to the multimodes of transportation, and lastly creating presence in an area where one is currently lacking. (boards 3/4)